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Hawaiian Holiday

Date: Dec 04 2001

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Just like everywhere else in the world, it’s common to travel for the holidays in the U.S. One of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving, but instead of spending it at home with my family, I decided to take a trip to Hawaii instead.
I missed my family, but I have to say that I had a great time relaxing on the beaches of Hawaii. This time of year Oregon is really cold and wet so the Hawaiian sun felt very good.
In today’s conversation I tell Joe about my trip. Check it out!

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

John

Joe

John: Man, this rain is killing me!

Joe: Yeah, I know. It’s dreary and drizzly, hardly any sun’s coming out.

John: Yeah, it’s so much different than Hawaii.

Joe: Oh yeah, yeah. I know you were in Hawaii. I see you got a nice tan and everything. How was it?

John: It was awesome. It was, uh, six days hanging out on the beach just doing nothing. I was such a bum!

Joe: Just a complete bum. What kind of stuff did you see?

John: Not a whole lot really. I just laid on the beach on my little tatami mat and, uh, every hour or so I’d take the boogie board out and hit the waves.

Joe: That’s pretty cool. So, like, a boogie board, is it pretty small? Is it as big as a surfboard or…

John: It’s a little bit smaller and it’s made out of styrofoam and, uh, it’s a lot easier to use than a surfboard. But it’s pretty fun. You can get up in the waves and you can spin around and do all kinds of cool tricks.

Joe: Oh that’s cool! So the whole trip was pretty eventful then?

John: Yeah, it was really nice. You know, I guess Hawaii is supposed to rain on you every once in awhile but we were lucky – the whole five days it never rained. It was clear skies the entire time.

Joe: Sweet. Was the water real blue?

John: Yeah, the water was really clear. There were a lot of snorkelers out. They were saying they were seeing all kinds of strange fish like eels and, and crazy stuff like that. So I, I opted to stay above the water on the boogie board.

Joe: I don’t blame you!

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Discussion

As you can see, I had a great time. There isn’t much I would rather do than lay on the beach and swim in the ocean all day long. Hawaii is only a five-hour plane ride from Oregon and I’m thinking I should go more often!
There were a couple times in the conversation where I shortened an “ing” word to “in.” Did you catch them? I did two in a row in one sentence. Did you hear it?
I hope your winter is going well. Do you have any travel plans? If so, please come to the Life Goes On message board and share them with us!
Your American Friend,
John